Apr 7 Letter to a Woman's Tender Heart on Getting Unstuck and Seeing New Possibilities

You can only do what you can do – define possibilities, not limits

Dear Heart,

I love you, but you’re stuck right now.

Everything you see is coming from a place of stuck-ness, and you’ve been there for a while. I see you continually trying to work on getting out of that place, and I have so much respect for that. But Heart, I don’t understand how you can expect to get unstuck when all you’re focusing on are limits.

I see you feeling hopeless. Lost. Insecure. Limited. This isn’t an issue of your ability, Heart, because I know that you are capable of so much. This is an issue of perspective.

You’ve gotten yourself into this place before. In this place – this very, very stuck place – all you see are the barriers. This is a place of tunnel vision, where you are laser focused on all the things that feel the very worst. Of course you would end up feeling hopeless and insecure in this place, Heart. When you feel this lost, it makes sense that the only thing you’d be able to focus on would be the limitations.

You have been spinning your wheels trying to find a way out of being stuck, but how can you expect to find your way, when all you keep looking at and focusing on are all the reasons you feel stuck in the first place?

You need to change your perspective, my Heart.

I know what you’re capable of. I’ve seen you in action. You are capable of loving to such deep depths. You feel, well everything, so deeply. Your ability to dive in to these emotions is so often your greatest strength, but also your greatest weakness when not used appropriately.

It is your greatest strength because it enables you to connect to people in ways that are beyond profound, and that connection is incredibly healing. It is a place of soft, easy vulnerability, that people can relax into and feel protected inside of, as they learn how to manage their own vulnerabilities. In those moments, Heart, you have this way of being able to shed light on the possibilities, instead of the limits, that people so often aren’t able to see.

But this ability also gets in your way sometimes. You start questioning yourself when you are overwhelmed by your vulnerability. You question your choices, your reactions to different things and people, and you get in your own way. You start asking “What if?” and you overthink. Remember us talking about decluttering? When you’re in your own way, Heart, you lose perspective on the possibilities life holds for you, because you’re so busy being scared. And scared leads to insecure.

Insecure leads to lost. Lost leads to stuck. And stuck, my lovely Heart, leads to hopeless.

Let me remind you, Heart, what you always tell me. Vulnerability is simply a reflection of our discomfort with the unknown. We call it “Unknown for a reason, don’t we? Because of the possibility offered by the unknown. When I’ve tried so hard in the past to reason my way through fear and discomfort with all the facts I thought made the most sense, you told me “Lean in to it. Lean in to your fear. Be ok with the discomfort, because discomfort means growth. Growth only happens when we have possibilities. So, lean in to it.”

Heart, in those moments you taught me I had to stop looking so hard for proof. You taught me I had to stop looking for all this evidence to support the way I thought. You taught me it was ok to open myself up to other things – to have possibilities and options. You showed me there was always more than just one way to look at any given thing. I love you for that. You have been my warrior when I wasn’t able to be.

Now I only want to be that for you. So lean in to it, Heart. Lean in to your fear. Lean in to your discomfort, and lean in to the unknown. Because it’s not hopeless.

Nothing is ever hopeless, my gentle Heart. Give yourself permission to go back to that soft, easy vulnerability that I know you can be inside of.

Inside of that space is all the possibility you have been searching for. There is nothing wrong. There is nothing to fix. There are no limits, my Heart. Only growth.

Kelly is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice, and has worked since 2009 with children, families, and now one on one with adults learning how to cope with anxiety, trauma, and life transitions. She believes all people have a common thread of pain, stuck-ness, and avoidance of accountability because they simply don't know what or who to be accountable to. They have spent so long working so hard to own the false narratives that everyone around them told them to own, without ever knowing how to stop and examine what actually belongs to them.

She works with her clients to stop the conversation of blame, take inventory of themselves, their relationships, and their environments, and own their crap while placing ownership where it belongs—with themselves, for all the other stuff.

She believes in everyone’s ability to define their life course and fully stand proudly in the middle of that, being accountable to every step.

Kelly is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice, and has worked since 2009 with children, families, and now one on one with adults learning how to cope with anxiety, trauma, and life transitions. She believes all people have a common thread of pain, stuck-ness, and avoidance of accountability because they simply don't know what or who to be accountable to. They have spent so long working so hard to own the false narratives that everyone around them told them to own, without ever knowing how to stop and examine what actually belongs to them.

She works with her clients to stop the conversation of blame, take inventory of themselves, their relationships, and their environments, and own their crap while placing ownership where it belongs—with themselves, for all the other stuff.

She believes in everyone’s ability to define their life course and fully stand proudly in the middle of that, being accountable to every step.